In Response

...to Jason's comment on the last post. First of all, yes, I mis-wrote about the exfoliated cells. Thanks for clarifying.

The other comment though (about the conservatives' outrage over embryo destruction) deserves a second look.

Many stem cells go to research because there is a surplus of embryos from the new and "exciting" ways to get pregnant. Some women donate their eggs for science, some use them for themselves (in vitro fertilization). The point is, this surplus either sit in a freezer (those poor, cold non-things!) or they are thrown away. A donation center cannot keep the embryos forever. When women begin the process of trying to get pregnant this way/donating eggs, they have a lot of paperwork to fill out. One of the questions invlolves the use of her surplus eggs. They can choose to throw them away, donate them, or freeze them "indefinitely." Wow! Look at that freedom of choice!

The irony (and I'm not using it the way Bush did. What do we think he meant? Irony= the weird thing is...?) is that Bush has two daughters who were created through "unnatural" means. Laura took fertility drugs. Though Laura did not have to go through the petri-dish process, would she have? Does Bush believe that playing god is okay when it comes to creating babies?

I wish Bush would address this discrepancy. How can you be outraged about donations of eggs for science (which may cure some diseases that affect actual children), but not even address donations for fertilization? These donations are creating the surplus. It's the fertility clinics that are running out of space. They are the ones that need to throw the eggs away.

Thus, it seems to me that Bush would rather throw away "potential life" than use it for research.

Another clarification: the bill would have increased government funding of stem cell research, which may not seem like that big a deal (private funding, right?). The truth is, however, that no lab can do this kind of research without assistance from the government.